SOURCE: "The Iconography of the Terror-film: Wiene's Caligari," in Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980, pp. 164-200.

Prawer is a German-born English critic and educator specializing in German literature, particularly the work of Heinrich Heine. In the following excerpt, taken from his book which examines the masterpieces of Gothic cinema and theorizes on the function and significance of the artistic expression of horror, he provides an extended discussion of the thematic, narrative, and stylistic innovations of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and assesses its influence on subsequent films and filmmakers.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari invites its audience to explore a mise en scene that sets live actors and solid furniture into stylized exterior and interior sets obviously painted on to theatrical flats and photographed by a camera which moves relatively little. Its flowing narrative does, however, make significant though sparing use...